It has been an eventful week in Morocco. First a minor earthquake rocked the country on Sunday night, then an attempted suicide bombing rocked the city of Meknes on Monday morning (the last such attempt was in April [1]). The bomber, identified in Jordan's Al Bawaba [2] news site as Hisham Dokkali, is a 30- year-old engineer. No one was killed in the incident, not even Dokkali, who did lose an arm as a result, however. He is thought to have been targeting a tour bus parked near Place Hedim [3] in the center of Meknes’ old city, or medina.
[4]
The attempt gave way to a variety of reactions – blogger Myrtus [5] asked, “Dannnng where the hell do they find these stupid people?” while The Morocco Report [6] was a bit cynical:
Great, I’m gone from Morocco for less than two weeks and someone tries to blow himself up [7] in Place Hedim (the center of Meknes) – and yet, he failed and didn’t even manage to kill himself. Just like a Moroccan suicide bomber
The latter post garnered interesting comments – Adilski [8] was shocked:
Everything is shaking in Morocco. The soil, Political scene, media and people. I’d love to know what went on in this guy’s mind carrying a butane container to detonate himself. Good thing everything is safe but the suicidal ideology amongst Moroccan youth is just shocking.
Xoussef [9] thanked God for the incompetence of the bomber, which Elle [10] took further, saying:
They are so incompetent that they could not even get the message that Allah is not helping them to do harm to innocent people!
Ange Bleu [11] was outraged as well:
Un autre imbécile parmis tant d'autres qui croit que la violence va régler tout.
Samuel Gunter of Life Called… [12], who is a Peace Corps [13] volunteer in Morocco, sent a missive via his blog:
There was yet another bombing in Morocco. This time it wasn't in the far off coastal city of Casablanca, it was in Meknes, one of the Imperial Cities. To set your mind at ease… Meknes, although considerably closer to me than Casablanca, is still about 140km away from me. So don't worry about me, worry about Morocco and worry about our world, and if you pray, pray for us all.
We, all of us, are in the fight of our lives. You and I are warring against indifference in our own lives, and the objectifying influence hatred and ignorance have on all of our hearts. As long as we live in a world with and “us and a them” we will be at war. Until we finally discover that there is nothing but “we” we will always be fighting. Those of here attempt to stand in that gap and are struggle against both ourselves and other forces to bring two wayward families together, or at least to remind all of us that we are family.
There are always times of doubt here because sometimes because the immediacy doesn't always seem that evident.
It is.
Photo of Place Hedim (Meknes, Morocco) by Jillian York [14].